


Third Time's the Charm

by Ylevihs



Series: How Not to Fall [36]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: EDITH - Freeform, Farm Headcanons, M/M, Retribution Spoilers, canon typical paranoia, established relationships - Freeform, platonic chargestep, referenced suicide attempts, regina headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21706153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylevihs/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: It's getting easier and easier each time.
Relationships: Herald/Sidestep (Fallen Hero), Ortega/Chen (Fallen Hero)
Series: How Not to Fall [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327892
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Third Time's the Charm

Edith had finally managed to worm her way into Richard’s lap by the time Chen spoke again. It was impossible not to find her warm weight reassuring. Heavy on his thighs, an awkward shifting pressure that was pleased beyond belief to be up on the couch with him. 

Focus on her. Tight brown grey curls between his fingers. Gentle eyes. Baseline. Happy. Surrounded by her people and new friendly people that smelled like food and other dogs. 

“Why are we protecting Mad Dog, exactly?” He finally asked. Chen had leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands folded together, chin resting on his knuckles. 

A heavy pause and in it every bundle of nerves in Richard’s body tensing for a great unknown. Just how many of Chen’s theories had pointed to him? How many conclusions were being reached? How hard exactly was Chen going to hit him when he found out Richard had broken Daniel’s knee?

Focus on the dog. Focus on Edith she’s a good girl and she loves you and leaning in to give a quick lick to his cheek and step up, all thirty thousand pounds of her, on his stomach. Richard wheezed gently and urged her to the side, between himself and Chen, just as Ricardo answered.

“You know why Wei,” Oh. Well then. Out and open. 

“Shit,” Chen echoed, shallow. Quiet. No blips on the radar. Ah, beans, he had known. Hadn’t wanted to believe it, but he’d known all the same. It felt. Strange to have to acknowledge that Chen had been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt like that. Perhaps not strange. Just. “And the...other?” Another nod from Ricardo. “Shit, shit, shit,” slow but emphatic. Meaning it. He glanced at Richard out of the corner of his eye, the look bringing an ugly slipping sensation in his stomach. His lungs. Rotation. Gravity like the moon pulling the tides. Chen turning to look at him head on. 

Edith straightened up to pant at Chen, licking the air beside his face. Chen gave her a gentle pat, ruffling the hair on her head, the look in his eyes changing so slightly. Only noticeable if you were looking straight into them. They flicked to Richard and felt worlds different. Harder in a smooth edged way, rounded where there should have been scalpel thin spikes. “Why?”

Richard felt bile rise up his throat. Swallowed it. This was. Manageable. He could do this. There were a lot of why’s that Chen could be asking about. May as well start with the biggest one and work his way out. 

“The woman in that photo, she,” she knew that they knew and was probably watching right know knew where he was and knew how to get to him and would be coming she would be coming and she would. Cold cold cold and suddenly Edith’s nose pressing against his neck. Gentle calm Edith. Beyond her resigned and. Questioning, confused, angry and hurt but overall resigned Chen. The great blank expanse of Ricardo. Danny. Steady and sun warmed like skin just before it blisters. A soft, registering pulse. “Made me who I am. Not in the poetic sense,” he added, as though it would help. It didn’t, Chen’s confusion bumping up slightly. “She created me. Molded me into the perfect little,” science experiment. Her pride and joy. What Frankenstein’s monster wouldn’t have given for the kind of attention Regina had given him. At least it could prove to him that the grass wasn’t always greener. 

Too long a pause. 

“Soldier?” Chen prompted, voice heavy. 

“Dog,” Richard’s mouth decided for him. “To come when called. To heel when ordered. Roll over and play dead,” something shifted. Richard bit down. The terror was dull. Muted. Screaming from a house down the block in the middle of the night. “You know what I am?” He wanted to see it. Hear him say it. That he’d known and hadn’t said anything. To anyone. Why would?

Chen had the decency to wince. To hesitate before the nod and the quiet “Yes,”.

He hadn’t been sure before, but he was now. Clear in his thoughts and plain. Those were bridges to be crossed another time, if they were ever crossed at all. Maybe the rivers would run dry before they ever reached them. Chen didn’t seem to have any desire to travel that way either. 

“She made me,” he repeated. Maybe saying it again would drive it in. No reaction from Chen, however the pulse from Daniel was felt and shelved for later discussion. Saved for quieter, hushed tones. He hated when Richard referred to himself as a thing. As being created and made. Not born. Not raised. He could keep on hating it, it wouldn’t make it less true. Bitter smoke winnowed through his lungs. “And then lost me. And then she got me back,” she wasn’t about to let him go again. But who would have thought the mangled body and mind they tortured day in and out would have the strength to escape again? “Lost me again,” like a plastic bag on a windy day, spinning out of reach. 

Almost comical. To think of himself tumbling just out of her clutches.

Almost. 

“When I got out. The second time. The only thing I could think of was working to take apart the place that made me. Because the people like me. The things they do in there, you wouldn’t,” he felt those words die in his throat. Another long silence edged in. A shallow, measured movement. It didn’t hurt to breathe yet. No stinging in his eyes. How messed up was it that this was getting easier? Easier to say. Ripping the same bandage off over and over again made it stick less each time. Less of a shock each time it was jerked away. “Maybe you would,” Chen had been military. And now as the Marshal of Los Diablos? There was no way he didn’t see blacked out reports. Couldn’t piece together some of the activities of the higher ups. “Anyway. It wasn’t as if I could do that legally,” again, no raised eyebrow that he was expecting. No surge of condemnation. Patience. Waiting for him to finish. 

Not quite like taking a confession, but damn close to it. Richard could feel Chen taking down notes for later. For if and when he needed to arrest him. To stop him.  
Something twisted in Richard’s gut and he could not tell for the life of him if it was annoyance or relief or. Didn’t matter. “I’m not a person in the eyes of law. Even out here in Los Diablos. If they wanted to strip me down and part me out like an old car they could. There was no legal way for me to work on shutting them down. Expose what they were doing. But in order for people to listen to what I needed to say, they had to take me seriously,”

“So you became Mad Dog? You became a villain?”

“I’ve been trying to build a reputation as someone exposing corruption. Someone that people will believe when I pull back the curtain on what the Farm has been up to. And I couldn’t just change my name or how I looked. As soon as people find out that I’m…what I am, it’s over. They’ll know I’m not a person. I’m literally a piece of property and no one wants a lesson in morality from their toaster,” the words were hardly out of his mouth and Daniel was out of the arm chair.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” he muttered and the words were heavy. Hard. Didn’t want to sit around and hear Richard keep talking like that but also didn’t want to argue in front of Ricardo and Chen. 

“I’ll help,” and ah, beans. A tremor of nerves. Not leaving the apartment but. Okay. That was okay, the kitchen was just a few steps away and they would be just a few steps away. It was fine. Chen sat silently for a few moments while Ricardo and Daniel moved into the kitchen and then shifted his weight. The couch groaned but held and Edith eagerly oozed into the new space between them. 

And then Chen spoke as he leaned in slightly. “You’ve hurt people,” a clear statement. Ordering his thoughts as much as could. Difficult when there were so many things Richard could sense he wanted to ask. Bubbling at the surface. 

“I have,” easy to admit. The easiest thing. People had been sent to the hospital. And Chen didn’t even know about Mitzi. “I have ruined lives. I’ve destroyed reputations and careers and I’ve hurt people. I’ve lied. A lot. About everything you could imagine and then some things you couldn’t begin to guess at,” sensing it coming. Chen did frown at that. More, apparently, at the implication that he couldn’t imagine. His mind was turning. But not in a direction that Richard could follow. “I’ve stolen. Cheated. Done things that would make your skin--,”

“You haven’t killed. Not as Mad Dog,” Not a question and. Thinking about Marconi’s house. Thinking about the overpass. The bridge. Every fight with Argent and every near miss. The dozens of other times he could have and didn’t. Richard felt the muscles in his chest tighten and clench, battening down against the rising swell of.

“I almost killed Daniel,” that one still hurt to say. That one was never going to dull. Flinchy nerve endings sending panic signals up and down his legs. 

Chen’s entire body seemed to stiffen. Eyes back to sharp and mouth a firm hard line. A minor surge of anger. A roll of thunder that made Richard’s teeth ache. “You didn’t though,.. and he’s still?” there was the flash of uncertainty. “He’s forgiven you?” disbelief, which was beyond fair. Followed hot on its heels was. A minor debate. Something inside him telling Chen that it wasn’t any of his business and if Daniel had forgiven him then. Fighting with the throat creaking thought that Richard was manipulating Daniel into forgiving him. Doing something, psychic or not, to force him into staying. 

“He shouldn’t have,” it wasn’t meant to be a whisper, but it came that way nonetheless. It still rested like oil on water, dark and slick and rancid. He shouldn’t have. “I didn’t want him to, when I told him I,” his apology should have never been accepted. He should have hated Richard, despised him and. And. Ah, beans. 

“You told him? It wasn’t that he found out somehow?” doubt and confusion. It didn’t make sense for Richard not have continued lying about it. But it would have made it so much worse in the long run. The longer one waited to reveal a lie, the worse it always was. 

Painful even to hear in his own voice. “I couldn’t live with myself,” and that more than anything so far that night felt raw. Exposed. Richard hadn’t even found the courage to talk with Finch about. It hadn’t been too many times that he’d actually tried anything. Thought about it more than took measures. But. He’d stood up on the edge of the rooftop the first night after they’d slept together. Drunken fingers had fumbled the noose he’d tied out of bedsheets. And after the confession, if Daniel had told him to throw himself in front of a train, he probably would have. “Are you going to arrest me tonight?” It was probably the first time he’d ever hoped the answer would be no. 

He’d wanted Daniel to arrest him so that he could have a reason to kill himself. And there was a part of him that had wanted Ricardo to stop him ever since they day he’d seen the fool in the diner. Chen made a heavy sound.

“Not tonight,” he said and a trickle of relief ran down Richard’s spine. 

He hadn’t been paying attention to what his face was doing, had he? Chen had been. There was a sudden jack knife turn, away from that destination. 

“How long has Ricardo known?” tempered with. A great many things. Too many emotions to pick one for certain but Chen’s eyes darted back over his shoulder to where Ricardo and Daniel were whispering in the kitchen. Not. Well, no. No, there was jealousy. But not because Richard had told the others first. Jealousy from. It was faint and growing fainter. Chen actively stamping in down, pushing it away. Didn’t want Richard to feel that. Tossing it under the rug before company came.

Richard could see the outline of it, even still. 

Ricardo had protected him. Lied to Chen to protect him and. Had Richard revealing the truth to Ricardo been the thing to? What drove him to?

It felt like a punch to the back of the head. “Maybe,” hard to make the mouth work because how could he think that? Which wasn’t fair at all, because Richard knew exactly how he could think that. Ricardo was his best friend. And there had been that awkward tension for years because of his little crush. And then Heartbreak. And Ricardo had never quite gotten over it and then Richard had come back like a terrible phantom and then. And then, on the outside, there was a long period of them getting closer. Even with Daniel thrown into the mix, the assumption that he and Ricardo were. “It was maybe a few months ago? It uh. When we had those monsoon rains. We. Daniel and I, invited him to dinner. And I told him everything,” 

That hurt. Not him, not him, that hurt Chen to hear and ah, beans. Richard swallowed what he hoped was going to be his entire tongue. “I can’t tell you what was going on in his head that night,” which wasn’t nearly as kind sounding as he had wanted it to be. “But whatever was…there was never anything between us like that,” 

“Except that you kissed him,” a pause as things fell into place. “After you beat him and Daniel up,” gloating, he assumed. A victory lap. Rubbing it in that Richard could defeat them both. 

Richard fought back the wince and failed, letting his gaze slip off of Chen and onto Edith, who was doing her best to nose Chen’s hand into petting her. “I did,” a half sigh. “It was before…before a lot of things had happened. Changed. And I kissed him on the forehead,” and important detail, just in case Ricardo had omitted that in his retellings. “He. He went to you after he left me and Danny didn’t he?”

A smaller stab. A shift in the weight on the couch. Petting Edith carefully. “He did.” But Chen made it sound like fatal wound anyway. 

“If…If I had to guess,” No, don’t do that. “No. You’re going to have to ask him, Chen. I can only tell you that he’s not,” he’s not settling for you, he didn’t say. Couldn’t say because it wasn’t for him to do that. That terrible little conversation was going to be for Ricardo to deal with on his own. Preferably in private. If Chen ever admitted to feeling that way. “We were never in love like that,” direct it away from there, if only for Chen’s sake. “Not the way Daniel and I are,” a non-committal grunt. 

The space between them would have been a great deal more tense if Edith hadn’t rolled onto her back, unsubtly demanding belly rubs from her new friend. Chen obliged and the distraction opened the streets back up. Another hard turn. Tires shrieking with the friction. The roads of Chen’s mind were twisty and frequently coated in black ice. Difficult to keep up on without skidding completely out of control. 

“Why didn’t you tell us back then?” not the entire question. Why hadn’t he told Ricardo or Anathema or. 

“I couldn’t trust that any one of you wouldn’t turn me in,” a shudder ran down his shoulders. Wasn’t being watched. The apartment was clean and Daniel and Ricardo were in the kitchen and it was fine. “I had heard the things Ricardo had said about the Special Directive. The things you said about them. Freaks and monsters. It didn’t really inspire confidence to hear Anathema joking about whether or not they…And...you know by now that I was certain you hated me back then,” Chen gave a minor nod. Not his proudest moment, they both knew. It wasn’t worth digging at. “I kept trying to build myself up to it, and then something small would happen. Always minor but I’d take any excuse not to take the risk. And then heartbreak,” 

Movement. Ricardo and Daniel returning with coffee, plunking down mugs onto coasters. Edith raising up slightly, the dull thud of a wagging tail at Danny returning to the room. Ricardo took the armchair while Daniel folded his legs up under himself and floated at head height. 

“Good talk?” 

“A talk,” Chen gave back.

“Enough for tonight,” Richard allowed, wondering briefly if he was allowed to turn the attention off of his own interrogation. After a moment of staring at the mug of coffee in front of him, he decided that he didn’t care either way. “You saw that Regina’s going to try to kill me? Or Senator Carmichael is?” Chen leaned back in the couch slightly, letting them have a better line of sight to each other. He also turned his head to take in Ricardo’s face. “The papers you saw actually said that?”  
Ricardo blinked and took a long drink from his mug. Considering. “You think they aren’t?”

“Regina didn’t want me to die even after I escaped the first time,” as if that was a good enough reason to doubt what she had let them see on that security footage. “I’m an investment. Money, time. Her pride,” And. Oh and. “And now she knows that I have information about you. All of you. She’ll want to extract that from me,” Daniel shifted in the air at ‘extract’. “She’s going to have just as many questions for me as you all did. If I die during that, inside that place…,” 

Well.

Those were just rumors, weren’t they? That the mind of a regene could be plugged back in like a dead phone battery. Bodies couldn’t be, certainly. But a consciousness? If the way he could jump into empty shells like Mitzi was any indicator, Regina could torture him from one vessel to another until his mind gave out. “She doesn’t want me dead. But she must be salivating at the thought of being able to get her hands on the likes you,”

“So you’ve said,” Ricardo pointed out, setting his coffee down and leaning back in the arm chair. “That the Farm would love to get their hands especially onto boosts like Daniel. Or Angie,”

“Yeah, but when I was talking about it I was lying to myself that I could do something to protect them from her,” Daniel opened his mouth slightly to say something, thoughts sweeping in that he could protect himself, thank you very much. And so could Argent. Richard didn’t give him the chance. “And she has uses for mods. They make for excellent…supplemental material,” Ricardo and Daniel cringed. Chen still didn’t know enough to be disgusted. He didn’t interrupt. “If anything she’s going to do whatever she can to have us taken in alive,” Richard grimaced, reaching out and taking his coffee mug into his hands. “So. What did she let you see?”


End file.
